


Holidays

by cualacino



Category: True Detective
Genre: F/M, Implied Rust/Maggie, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-20
Updated: 2019-07-20
Packaged: 2020-07-09 00:36:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19878712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cualacino/pseuds/cualacino
Summary: Maggie speaks to Lori and Rust about their split.





	Holidays

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [an untitled Rust/Maggie comic](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/500140) by i-have-a-hunger. 



When the holiday specials started to troop across the television, Maggie would take wreaths of plastic branches and dark orange tablecloths out of the linen closet. When the girls were younger, she would post their hand turkeys on the fridge with magnets shaped like Indian corn. Later, she just set up the pilgrim salt and pepper shakers that Audrey picked out one year at the Christmas Tree Shop. As time went on, those things became more of a habit than a tradition, in that traditions usually have some sentiment behind them, and habits are thoughtless, a little compulsory. 

After the decade-long falling out with Maggie's parents came to a climax, the Harts decided on a smaller meal – no relatives, just close friends, Rust and Lori, which became just Lori after their split. They were closer to Rust, in a way, but Maggie had known Lori longer, and they both knew she'd make for better company. And she didn't disappoint – Maggie could hardly imagine Rust joining them, settled in front of the TV with a beer or chopping sweet potatoes at the counter, even if Lori did manage to smooth out his rough edges. Rust seemed to chafe at the domestic.

Audrey and Maisie were in their rooms, Marty had promised to tackle the dishes after dinner if he could watch the game, so Maggie and Lori had the kitchen for the evening. 

When they bought the house, Maggie had liked how open it was, the pass-through looking onto the living room, the big windows looking out onto the yard. Now, with the heat and the smell of cooking, the quiet rattle and scrape of spoons, and the steam coming off the pots like fog, the room felt very private. She and Lori spoke quietly, but confidently as they waited for the stove timer to ding. Away from Marty and the girls, they could do some real catching up, more openly this time. Lori said her new job in Baton Rouge was draining her, but she'd lucked out on her apartment – spacious, with sloping ceilings and giant skylights that lit up the white walls. She was going to paint it soon.

"Is Rust still living in that psych ward?" She laughed.

Maggie nodded, slowly, a little surprised by the mention of him. She and Marty did their best to edge around the subject of Lori with Rust, and she got the feeling he was grateful for it. Maggie had assumed it would be the same for Lori.

"Well, it suits him," Maggie said, not meanly. From what Marty had told her, Rust's barren apartment fit him to a T.

She put a broad copper pot under the tap. The water rang out against the bottom, quieting as the pot filled. "Seeing anyone now?"

"I was," Lori said after a pause. She rolled and unrolled a dish rag, like she was trying to wring the water out of it.

"Was?"

"Yeah, her name was Delilah."

"Oh!" Maggie said. 

"She was a nurse practitioner in the hospital. Really smart. It didn't work out – well, maybe it's obvious why. I did like her though. I liked her a lot."

"Oh," Maggie said again. She heard the water spilling over the edges of the pot, hitting the sink tinnily. 

"I thought I'd say so here, first." Lori brushed some crumbs away from her on the countertop, but thought again and swept them into her hand. 

Maggie nodded. "Well, Marty's alright with it. It puts him on edge, a little. And the girls would be fine. Sometimes I think Audrey's… Well."

"Not at the dinner table, then." 

"Maybe after drinks." Maggie hefted the pot out of the sink, letting the water slosh into the drain and settle just below the rim. Lori stepped over, emptied the crumbs out of her palm. "I'm sorry, Lor."

Lori smiled thinly. "I'm used to it. Well, not quite, but getting there."

Maggie didn't quite know what to do with that, so she took out the bag of green beans and handed Lori a paring knife to give the both of them something to do.

"Was he really that bad?" She asked after a stilted pause.

"Who, Rust?" Lori asked. She didn't wait for the answer: "He doesn't seem it, but honestly, he was one of the nicest guys I've ever been with."

"Oh, I know Rust," Maggie said with a laugh. "He's not nice." 

"Most guys'll tell you whatever they think you want to hear, and they're usually dead wrong. Rust was honest, at least." She nodded, conceding, "A little too honest, sometimes... Most times. But you forget how much that matters."

"Honesty?"

"Yeah, and the respect that comes with it."

Over the clatter of pans, the boiling water, they heard the game in the other room and Marty's mumbled commentary, the grunt of his chair when he lurched forward. Lori glanced over, vaguely curious. Maggie looked down at the floor tiles, as if there might be another topic of conversation in the grout.

"Maybe I should say he's the best man I ever dated." Lori nodded. "I believe that." She took some boiling squash off heat, fanned it with her hand. "But that might say more about the men around here than it says about Rust." The bitterness in Lori's voice seeped through the humor. Maggie can't blame her – she can't imagine she's any better at hiding bitterness, though she's never tried very hard.

The timer buzzed, and Maggie edged past to grab the turkey pan.

Lori put down the pot lid and spoon in her hand and turned, leaning her hip into the counter. "Come on, now – we've known each other long enough that you're allowed to pry."

Maggie shook her head gently. "No," she said, smiling, "it's really fine..."

"It's nothing scandalous.” Lori shrugged her shoulders, aggressively nonchalant. “I wanted kids. He didn't."

Maggie felt a pang of disdain at that; at length, she turned to Lori, flexing her hands against the cool edge of the sink. "Lori, you must've known about his family."

"Of course I knew,” Lori laughed. “You know how he tries to shock everyone when he comes into a room. He told me about Sophia on our second date." She dug a fork into the squash's orange meat, twisted the tongs in the warm insides.

"He hides from things, Maggie. You know that. He just runs away, and I thought that if I got him to sit down and face something for once in his life, maybe he'd change."

"For you?"

Lorie paused. "For the better."

–

Rust sat a little easier in the lawn chair after seven years. Maggie had lead him through their home with little transactions – some tea for a lawn mowed, a sandwich after some conversation – making a path out of mundane interactions that took him, almost willingly, to their backyard. It was a little lawn party, with colored paper lights strung up on the fence and paper napkins on the fold-out table she and the girls dragged out of the garage. Marty was showing off the gas grill to some of his work friends, their blue polo shirts making an amphitheater for him. It was late June, so the smell of gunpowder was already drifting throughout the neighborhood as people geared up for the Fourth of July.

Maggie found Rust when she was bringing out another jug of lemonade. She was also mid-retreat from a brief, aborted attempt to get Audrey to come out of her room and join in. Rust was leaning forward, folding and refolding a napkin as he looked around the yard. He squinted at the crowd, his mouth a thin, neutral line.

“How’s it going?”

He didn’t quite start, but he did visibly come back to himself, breathing deep and straightening, eyes wide as a smile fell a little hesitantly into place. “'S alright. Nice party.”

“Glad you think so.” In passing, a mother of one of Maisie’s friends took the pitcher off Maggie’s hands with a mouthed 'thank you' and held it forth to the other women like a trophy. Relieved, Maggie sat next to him, wiping her damp hands on her thighs. “I know this isn’t really your ideal Saturday, but I appreciate you coming.”

“No,” he drawled. “It’s not like that. Not like I would be doing much else ‘sides work if I weren’t here.” He blinked and half-turned to her. “It’s no problem, really.”

Maggie hummed.

“Is Lori still –” He stopped. “She’s not here.”

“We thought it’d be best for the both of you. Figured you two are probably a little raw.” Maggie looked at him. “The fact that you two haven’t been talking speaks to that.”

“The way it seemed to me, Lori and I both closed that door a while ago. I don’t mind.” Rust made a tight seam along the edge of the napkin with his thumb. “It was a nice thing you did, Maggie, but I don’t think I’m a man that does well with that sort of deal. I always knew that, even in the good times.”

“I don’t know I believe that –” 

“I’m stubborn,” Rust said.

“Some might say driven. Or opinionated.”

Rust raised his eyebrows, not quite contradicting her. “Just 'cause you make it seem nice don't mean it's a good thing.”

She set her elbow on the back of the chair, propped herself up with her fist at her temple. “You’re a good listener, but you’ve got your principles. There aren’t a whole lot of people that see those two can go together.”

Someone turned the music up, and the younger nurses with their fiancés and boyfriends moved into the open part of the yard. Marty’s friends, patting their stomachs self-deprecatingly, paired up with their wives to leave the divorced and the sober clustered by the grill. A window – Audrey’s – slapped shut sharply on the other side of the house. Maggie turned, sighed; Rust kept looking out at the other guests, the nurses and cops and housewives.

It was enough of a distraction to allow a space in the conversation, a jump past the preamble. Maggie cut in, speaking slowly to smooth the break: "I'm sorry things didn't work out between the two of you, Rust. I really am."

Rust’s hands moved over the napkin, flipping it again, feeling for its shape. "It's all to make a family unit. No reason to put up with someone else's bullshit without a prize at the finish line."

Maggie smiled patiently, drumming her fingers on her chair. "I don't think so. I think you two had something nice."

Rust looked at her. "Well, thanks for that, Maggie."

Finally, she came out with it: "I don't think it was right of her to ask that of you, at all. Well, don't look so surprised."

"Didn't you want children?"

"Yes, but Marty was –" She waved her hand to brush away the comparison. "But this is different. She knew, about your daughter."

"Maggie –" His voice was almost pleading.

"No, I'm sorry, but it wasn't right. And if she got hurt, that's her fault. How could she ask that of you?"

"Because she wanted it," Rust shrugged. "Because she'd been taught to want it. Lori, it's not like I don't realize that my thinking's off the beaten track. I don't expect people to agree." He frowned a little, like the words were too bitter. "So I try not to talk too much."

"You don't do a very good job, sorry to say."

"It's just 'cause you let me go on," he smiled.

"I like to hear you talk." It was out before she could help herself, too soft, too gentle. Rust stilled, looking down, and she looked away, feeling a flutter of embarrassment, and tacitly, they let the moment pass.

"She said I was running from something. Lori did," Rust said, to save them. 

"So's she."

Rust shrugged. "Maybe she was right. After you lose someone, after someone leaves you, you look around and see all the places they'd been. And you see the life you've made from a distance. Like artifacts of another world. I haven’t found my way out of all that ruin, and honestly I can’t say I ever will."

"Rust," she broke in, "you are the least cowardly man I've ever met. And maybe you've got some ideas I don't agree with, but I think you've made your peace with –"

"Maggie, I can't say I agree." His hands started to pick at the corners of the neatly folded square they'd created. "I've thought about these things, and I've come to conclusions. Peace is an illusion. Closure is a fantasy. I don't believe in endings."

She was never sure when she started noticing those little movements of his, the constant fidgeting, like he couldn't bear to sit still. She found it endearing, in the way she thought Marty's guileless smile was endearing when they first met. It was just some small thing that set him apart, made him recognizable, proved he was just a person, after all.

"Must be hard to work in police then." Maggie smiled. "I'm sorry, Rust, I can't take you seriously when you get all fire and brimstone. You sound like a Baptist preacher."

That quieted him. They listened to the party noise for a little while: Dolly Parton gave way to Bruce Springteen, a group of the cops erupted in laughter. Maggie watched Maisie dance on Marty’s toes, her hands in his, her face scrunched up in concentration. He bobbed slowly side-to-side, beaming down at her.

"I think it could've lasted," Rust said, low.

Maggie looked back to him. "If?"

"If I'd been different. Restrained myself. Been more open. I know I get to be tiring. Difficult. I'm not the negotiating type."

"Lori's the same. Why do you think it took so long for me to sit her down with you? We don't talk much." Maggie rearranged herself for a moment, recrossing her legs. “Plenty of couples split up over this, Rust. Plenty of people think long and hard about having kids, and whether they’re ready or able to do that, couples that have less to deal with than you and Lori. If it didn’t work, it didn’t work.”

Maggie leaned forward and took the shredded napkin out from under his fingers in one motion. His eyes snapped up to her like she’d cut a tendon. 

She saw something then, embedded in the center of his palm, and she forgot for a moment that they were surrounded by her coworkers, and Marty's coworkers, and that her daughter was drinking punch a few feet away. Maggie took Rust's hand and turned it over: there was a small puckered circle of scar tissue in the middle, the kind that might develop after a localised burn. Rust turned the other over to show her – a matching set. 

"It's what I like to call a meditative practice," he said, wry and low. "Now come on, you don't gotta pretend to be shocked. I'm sure you've got more to say."

Maggie straightened, withdrew from him. She dropped the bits of paper in her lap. 

“I expected her to know how you felt. I thought she’d understand at least that’s not something you just step over and move on from.”

“Oh, it wasn’t just that, Maggie,” Rust said, his voice edging towards impatience – not quite with her, but with everything. Like the very concept of conversation was some construction of the world meant to punish him. "The way I went about it made her out to be a bad person for even wanting that. Can't say I feel sorry about that, but I could've been gentler about it, and would've made things easier for everyone." He shrugged and reached down for his paper cup of sweet tea. "'Course it's a little late for all that now."

"I'd appreciate the chance to try again, Rust."

"Maggie –" He sighed.

"I think you could fit into this, down the line. Home life. It might be good for you. Might be right for you." Maggie took a minute to look around the yard: dancing couples, lights, folding tables draped with plastic tablecloths and dotted with Tupperware. "You’ve got a tenderness in you, I can tell. Not everyone does."

"Maggie." His voice was low, somewhere past patient. "I know you want to fix things, fix people. There's no fixing this."

She stared hard at him, ready for the moment when he'd blearily meet her eye. When he raised his head, though, he looked straight past her.

Maggie turned: Marty was making his way over to them, beer in hand, drunken swagger in his hips. "Rust getting you down?"

"No, not at all," she said. 

Marty took her hand and pulled her up to Elvis's heady baritone, sweeping her across the lawn. Rust watched her go. One of her work friends ambled over to him – a nurse, a little on the young side for Rust but pretty, bright – and he brushed her off, gently by the look of how she insisted, laughed, shrugged.

He watched them, folding and tearing the cup in turns. He watched the others with that hungry look of his, not wanting but starved for something all the same.

Marty turned her a few times, and then Rust was gone.


End file.
